The Human Touch: Can DMOs Outperform AI in Travel Planning?

When you’re planning a trip, which of the following resources do you consult the most?

Top five answers on the board:

a)?????? Search engines (Google, Bing)

b)????? Friends and family recommendations

c)?????? Travel websites (Travelocity, Expedia)

d)????? Social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, TikTok)

e)?????? Restaurant reviews (Yelp, Google Maps)

For more in-depth research, you may also look at travel blogs/vlogs, travel forums, printed travel guides (remember those?), and local tourism apps.

And if you’re particularly adventurous, ask AI for help!

But why doesn’t “Destination Marketing Organization” make the list?

Some more questions about DMOs:

• Have you ever come across the “Visit ___” website during travel planning?
• Do you actively seek out those sites?
• How useful do you find them to be?
• Do you perceive them to have high-quality, unbiased information?
• If so, what gave you that feeling? If not, why not?

Destination Marketing Organizations, or DMOs, are at the forefront of the emerging industry known as placemaking, which transcends tourism to encompass the broader areas of economic activity, entrepreneurship, and livability.

DMOs are generally funded by hotel/visitor taxes and government subsidies. While that can be a steady revenue stream, it’s hardly enough to compete with global search engines and international travel consolidators.

Or is it?

Where’s The Logic?

The biggest problem with DMOs is that they’re typically very good at the Data Layer and middling-at-best in the Presentation Layer, while mostly absent at the Business Logic Layer.

Let me explain.

In software design, a three-tier architecture includes three layers:

1. Presentation Layer: User interface, including web pages and mobile/desktop screens.
2. Business Logic Layer: Core functionality and business rules, including calculations, decision-making, and services.
3. Data Layer: Databases, including data storage, data retrieval, and management.

DMOs have the home-team advantage when it comes to building a thorough, comprehensive, and timely database of local attractions in the Data Layer. It’s their city, and they know what appeals to visitors. (Crowdsourcing was a good idea at first, but it has significant quality and reliability issues.)

Yet even with the best data, it’s very difficult for any organization, let alone one with limited funding, to compete with search engine companies when it comes to interface design at the Presentation Layer. Information posted on a DMO website often appears on numerous other platforms within hours, where it is more likely to be discovered. That’s not a bad thing for tourism – you want people to find that information, no matter how and where they do it.

That leaves the Business Logic Layer in the middle.

Based on what I saw in September at the International Downtown Association Annual Conference, DMOs are just starting to deploy modern content management systems (CMS) that allow staffers to update pages in real-time, drawing from a single source of data about local destinations. (Many haven’t gotten to that point, still relying on copy-and-paste operations.)

The CMS provides an express route between the Data Layer and the Presentation Layer. You add something to the database, and it immediately shows up on the website. That’s a huge win for logistics and operations.

But if you’re a DMO looking to build custom capabilities using Business Logic, you need more than the out-of-the-box capabilities of a CMS. That’s why we see DMOs managing parking spots, or sending SMS messages with traffic alerts, or issuing gift cards, or tracking check-ins at local merchants -- all using external vendors.

An external vendor is a better option than custom development – or no development at all.

But what if you had the benefits of custom development for less than what you’re paying external vendors?

That’s the world now arriving with low-code development tools (like Power Platform).

Low-code, explained (the short version): If you can describe it in words, AI can help you build it in code.

And what should a DMO build first?

The answer is Business Logic.

The competitive advantage of DMOs

When you’re visiting a new city, how do you select a restaurant?

Choose the option that best describes your approach:

a)?????? I head to the tourist district to check out the vibe, read the menus, and take my chances.

b)????? I eat at the hotel and/or order room service.

c)?????? I use Google Maps or Yelp or some other source of online reviews.

d)????? I ask the locals for recommendations, whether at a tourist information booth, concierge desk (if you’re at a nice hotel), or from people I meet.

If you answered (a), that’s a win for the tourist district and the DMO.

If you answered (b), that’s a win for the hotels that fund the DMO.

If you answered (c), that’s a win for whatever website(s) you relied upon for information, and for the providers of ?crowdsourced information, whether organic or paid.

If you answered (d), that’s a win for you.

My feeling on the matter is that you get the best experience through a personal recommendation from another human.

Sure, Google Maps may be fully capable of offering up an optimal selection based on objective criteria such as price, distance, and your past selections. But they don’t know the vibe. That’s how I’ve ended up at very good restaurants on very slow nights, or at so-so restaurants on very crowded nights.

From my experience, algorithms cannot offer the same level of excitement and interest as a personalized recommendation from an insider. (Obviously, it depends on who’s giving the recommendation. Suppose you meet a new friend who suggests a restaurant or nightclub, and Surprise! It’s a clip joint! Here’s the bill for your expensive watered-down champagne!)

That’s why I believe the best choice is to chat with a local who’s affiliated with a DMO.

It’s the ideal mix:

• Vetted info about places that meet standards for quality and service.
• A friendly local who can elicit what you want and steer you in the right direction.
• No strings attached. You don’t have to give your info, and they’re not getting kickbacks.

DMOs are uniquely positioned to deliver this mix.

While DMOs may be at a disadvantage relative to competitors when it comes to digital delivery, they have something that’s impossible for digital destinations to replicate: a physical presence. They have desks in prominent locations, with well-trained staff who can engage in face-to-face conversations with guests.

Only three things stand in the way of delivering on this humanistic vision for guest services:

1. Outdated systems
2. Inability to scale
3. Lack of imagination

The first two items are related.

If your knowledge management system consists of a pile of brochures, then it follows that everyone on your staff will need to get familiar with everything in that pile. And if that’s the case, you’ll end up with a small staff of well-trained experts.

That’s all well and good under normal circumstances, but what do you do when the FIFA Men’s World Cup comes to town in less than two years? How do you scale expertise at the same rate as the expected growth in tourism?

It’s unrealistic for one person – even an expert – to know everything about all of a city’s attractions.

It’s even more unrealistic to expect that expert to speak several languages.

The answer lies in enhancing personal interactions with technology.

Deconstructing DMOs

DMOs already have a Data Layer containing info about local destinations.

And they have a legacy Presentation Layer in their websites, which will never be enough to compete with AI-powered content aggregators having global reach and endless resources.

My hunch is that online travel resources will get smarter and better in a very short time, which may lead DMOs to question the ongoing value of their physical presence – unless they take active steps to keep up.

That’s why I believe DMOs must focus on their core differentiator: The information desks and other physical locations around a city that go beyond what any website can offer (even in the so-called metaverse). ?

Here’s how:

1.?????? Extend the Presentation Layer. Let staff perform searches and build itineraries on behalf of guests. Stop telling guests to go to this-or-that website, or to navigate three layers of menus on your website or those of your business partners. With some advance planning, you can do a much better job of it yourself. ?

2.?????? Build a Business Logic Layer. Here’s where you build anything and everything that supports the broadly-defined Presentation Layer. With AI and business rules, you can empower your staff to quickly generate results from complex, natural language queries. These capabilities will allow you to significantly expand your physical presence and staff capacity to accommodate any crowd.

3.?????? Enhance the Data Layer. Once you have the first two layers in place, take care to build and protect the underlying data. Use API connectivity to expand your reach and deliver value to business partners, while implementing security and auditing to ensure integrity.

Through this approach, DMOs can scale in new ways:

• Expand the number of employees entrusted to elicit details about what guests want
• Empower front-line staff with customizable, expert-curated journeys that precisely meet guest requests
• Ensure that guests walk away with exactly what they need
• Communicate in the guest’s language

The core business activity of a DMO is recommendations.

Recommendations match visitors with experiences.

Excellence in recommendations leads to repeat visits and positive word of mouth.

It’s not about extrapolation based on what someone has always done before. (Besides, AI can do that better.)

Instead, it’s about discovery – intuiting what makes someone tick, discovering what they may want to try next, and making a timely suggestion.

That's why I believe the art of recommendation to be a uniquely human activity.

Let's hope so.

Using low-code tools, I’m building a solution to support DMOs with curated guest journeys that can be shared by any front-line staff member. Guests can get deep-linked information from across the entire partner network, without app downloads or account signups, and without unnecessary collection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) such as phone numbers and email addresses.

In the coming weeks, I’ll share samples of what the DMO of the future will look like.

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